Restaurateur Bryan Dayton—the force behind Colorado’s acclaimed restaurants, including Corrida, OAK at Fourteenth, BriDer, Acorn, Bellota, C Burger, and C Bar— will open a flagship steakhouse, The Stockton, inside The Exchange, the historic heart of the National Western Center. Set to debut in summer 2026, the restaurant will bring Colorado’s cattle heritage to the table with unmatched craft and care.
Built in 1898, the Livestock Exchange Building was once the Rocky Mountain region’s premier hub for cattle trade, linking Denver to ranches across the West. Today, it is being reimagined as The Exchange, a landmark that will once again serve as a civic crossroads for agriculture, ranching, technology, and Western enterprise. Dayton’s steakhouse will anchor this vision, bringing people back to the historic center of Colorado’s cattle economy.
“This restaurant could only belong here—in this building, on this campus, in this city,” said Bryan Dayton, founder of Half Eaten Cookie Hospitality. “Denver’s cattle history is part of who we are, and I feel lucky to carry that story forward in a way that supports our ranchers, our land, and our community.”
The Experience
The restaurant’s design, by Boulder-based Bray Architecture, blends classical grandeur with modern showmanship. Leather banquettes, coffered ceilings, and the original penny-tile floor set the stage inside the Livestock Exchange’s historic Denver Union Stockyards bank space. In the early 20th century, ranchers and commissioners struck cash cattle deals here that, on busy days, totaled more than a million dollars, making this room the very center of Colorado’s largest industry at the time. Today, it will become Denver’s most commanding dining room. A central cocktail bar, set before the original vault, recalls the glamour of America’s grand hotel era, while tableside carts for martinis, old fashioneds, and prime rib bring theater back to the table.
Like The Exchange itself, the restaurant will be a cultural crossroads where Colorado’s leaders, foodies, and ranching communities gather in a room that carries the weight of history and the promise of the West. Dayton’s project anchors a transformation led by EXDO Development and developers Justin Croft and Jon Hartman to ensure the Exchange continues to tell the Colorado story and carry its legacy into a new century.
A New Standard for Beef
Through his Corrida Cattle Company (CCC) label, Dayton partners with local ranchers to source regeneratively raised cattle. Using AMP (Adaptive Multi-Paddock) grazing practices, these ranches enhance soil health, improve biodiversity, and sequester carbon while producing exceptional beef. Dayton expects more than 80% of the steakhouse’s beef to come from Colorado-born and bred cattle, vertically integrating ranch to restaurant.
“This is not a concept to me, it’s my life’s work,” said Dayton. “I’ve worked on a ranch for three years and this is the only other work I’ve done outside the restaurant business. I want to show how beef, when raised regeneratively, can honor the land, the rancher, and the animal itself. We have brought this to life at Corrida through the lens of the Spanish chop house and can’t wait to extend this to Denver in a true Colorado Steakhouse experience. The Stockton will be quintessential Colorado dining.”
The Exchange is the redevelopment of the historic Livestock Exchange Building at the National Western Center, reimagined as a hub for the next century of Western innovation. Built in 1898, it combines a flagship regenerative steakhouse, Western craft retail, and the original saloon on the ground floor with three floors of offices for agriculture solution providers, land-forward entrepreneurs, and legacy trade groups shaping how the West works. With immediate access to CSU Spur, downtown Denver, and the Front Range, The Exchange connects research and industry, urban and rural, past and future.
